Netanyahu Rejects Criticism of 2014 Gaza War
JERUSALEM, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the state comptroller's harsh criticism of his leadership during the 2014 military incursion into the Gaza Strip in the report released last week.
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira's report also criticized then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu preempted the report's release with a statement saying he has faith in the leaders of the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency). He cited the "unprecedented quiet" for Gaza-perimeter residents since the end of the military operation in the summer of 2014.
Shapira said the prime minister's remarks were meant to denigrate the report, as well as him.
In June of 2014, Palestinian rocket fire spiraled to multi-rocket barrages on southern Israel and beyond. In the same month, terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teens on their way home from school in the Gush Etzion region south of Jerusalem.
The IDF launched Operation Protective Edge after Hamas fired more than 60 rockets at Israel on July 7.
During the 50-day war – the longest since the War of Independence – Israeli pilots destroyed more than 30 attack tunnels. Today officials estimate about 17 tunnels remain operational.
Response to the report among Israeli journalists reflected their political leanings.
In an op-ed entitled "No Leader at the End of the Tunnel," YNet journalist Nahum Barnea seemed to comply with the report's findings.
"Netanyahu isn't functioning as a leader: He isn't outlining a policy because he has no policy; he isn't imposing his opinion because he has no opinion," Barnea wrote. "The defense minister could have entered this void, but according to the report, that didn't happen either. Moshe Ya'alon stood out mainly in the things he didn't do. If he had any influence on the decision-making, it wasn't reflected in the cabinet."
Jerusalem Post political journalist Gil Hoffman wrote, "In Israeli politics, the equivalent is the examination of a poorly run IDF operation, followed by a series of criminal investigations," a reference to several pending investigations against the prime minister.
With no mention of the daily rocket barrages that led up to launching the offensive, Hoffman said the report indicates the operation may have been totally unwarranted.
"But the most devastating messages from the report and from interviews with former security cabinet ministers this week were that the entire operation may not have been necessary, and that in retrospect, the war was not wanted by Israel and did not accomplish enough to justify it taking place," Hoffman wrote.
The run-up to Protective Edge was strikingly (no pun intended) similar to Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 and Operation Defensive Shield in 2012. In all three instances, Hamas and Islamic Jihad stepped up rocket fire on Israeli population centers until Israel felt compelled to protect its citizens.
